


Grass Song

by madamebadger



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Mako - Freeform, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:59:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/pseuds/madamebadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s like home,” Ashley said, a little surprised. She cracked the seal on her helmet and palmed it off, turning her bare face into the breeze. After a moment Kaidan did too. (Ashley was more paranoid than most about taking her helmet off; if she thought it was safe, it probably was.) “God, it even <i>smells</i> like home.”</p>
<p>“You grew up…?”</p>
<p>“On Sirona.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “So yeah, I know, I basically fell off the turnip truck, compared to someone from Earth.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grass Song

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this as gen, but it would not be hard to read some pre-Ashley/Kaidan into it.

The Mako had been making some pretty unhappy noises for a while, but they were in the middle of a field when it finally clanged, screeched, groaned, and died.

Kaidan didn’t say anything, although ‘I knew that bouncing off that cliff face was a bad idea’ and ‘maybe stay away from the lava field next time’ sprang to mind. Neither did Ashley, although behind her helmet, her eyes met his in the rearview mirror and he could see the wry crinkle at the corners.

“All right,” Shepard said. “Ten minute break while I fix this thing.”

So they piled out of the Mako and onto the rolling green hills of the planet—and Kaidan had to admit, as places to be stuck while your commander attempted to beat some sense into her tank went, this wasn’t bad.

“It’s like home,” Ashley said, a little surprised. She cracked the seal on her helmet and palmed it off, turning her bare face into the breeze. After a moment Kaidan did too. (Ashley was more paranoid than most about taking her helmet off; if she thought it was safe, it probably was.) “God, it even _smells_ like home.”

“You grew up…?”

“On Sirona.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “So yeah, I know, I basically fell off the turnip truck, compared to someone from Earth.”

That wasn’t what he’d meant, and it stung a little that she’d jump straight to that—to the idea that he was going to put her down. Or maybe it just stung by association, that her first instinct was to put _herself_ down. But it wouldn’t do much good to argue with her over it, and he knew it, so he just said, “What was it like on Sirona?”

(In the distance: the sound of Shepard kicking the Mako’s wheel.)

“Nice.” She tilted her head up, and then to his surprise reached back and pulled out the pins holding her bun into place. Her hair slid down in a coil onto her shoulder, and she raked her fingers back through it, loosening it into a wavy mane of deep brown. Her hair, loose, softened her face—it wasn’t so much that it made her sexier (although he was willing to admit a weakness for beautiful dark hair) as that it simply made her look more approachable. He simultaneously understood why she always wore it pinned severely back, and regretted that it had taken him so long to see her like this. More personal, somehow. “Actually,” Ashley continued, “it’s a lot like this. In fact….” Ashley settled down to her knees and pulled off her gauntlets before plucking a blade of grass. “I’d swear this is the same grass we had on Sirona.”

“Really?” Kaidan dropped to his knees as well, pulling off his gloves. He broke off a blade of grass. Green, like the species of grass he was familiar with on Earth, but with a short, thick blue stem before it split into three brilliant emerald blades. “Seems pretty distinctive.”

“Yeah, well.” Ashley twirled the grass between her fingers. “Who knows, maybe it’s leftover from some ancient race’s terraforming project.”

“Protheans,” Kaidan said.

“Maybe. Or whoever seeded pyjacks on every damn planet,” she said, and they both laughed. In the distance, they could hear Shepard swearing, and laughed again.

“Or thresher maws,” Kaidan said.

“Too damp here for maws, thank god,” Ashley said. She spun the grass between her fingers again and then pressed it to her lips and blew. To Kaidan’s surprise, a sweet sound emerged: not the thin note he expected from a grass whistle, but a melodious chord. When it finished, Ashley dropped the grass. “I taught my sisters to blow a grass chord like that,” she said, and he would have sworn she was blushing a little. “Didn’t know I’d remembered it.”

“Show me?” he asked on impulse, and was rewarded by a spark of surprise in her dark eyes. But she recovered quickly and plucked him a stem of the tripartite grass.

“Hold it up to your mouth. Thumbs on each side. Blow gently—gently—there!” 

The noise he made was thin and halting, more a _fwee-fwee-fwee_ than her steady polyphony. But as he adjusted the force of his breath, it steadied and stabilized: still thin and hesitant compared to the notes she’d blown, but harmonious nonetheless.

“There you go,” she said with enthusiasm, clapping her bare hand on his armored shoulder. And then her gaze went sideways, and the self-denigration returned: “If you ever need to fake being a colony kid, now you know how.”

He looked at her, her steady profile, her hair still a tangled coil where it had been loosed from its tight bun, her eyes always on the horizon. He said, “When we’re on Earth, I’ll show you how to tell a dandelion clock.” When she glanced back at him, one eyebrow raised, he said, “Us Earth kids have our backwater rituals too, you know.”

In the distance, the Mako rumbled back to life, and they could both hear Shepard say, “Thank fucking god, you piece of crap.”

Ashley smiled, a real smile this time, not her usual smirk or wry grin. “All right,” she said. “When we’re back on Earth… you’re on.”


End file.
